Rejoice the Beauty
by Verthril
Summary: AU: Bella's first day at Forks High School has her picking up a hitchhiker, another girl out of her place and missing the sun of the south. Bella/Edward, Jubilee/Laura.
1. Chapter 1

Stephenie Meyer is the lady behind Twilight, while Marvel owns the X-men characters mentioned here within. No profit is to be made by this work.

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In that alien world of green full of moss and lichen I thought I'd never get used to, with the wipers of _the thing_ slapping to and fro in their own rain dance I saw a flash of colour so bright I had to blink to be sure I wasn't seeing things. Slowing in the morning rain to pull aside her was a girl tiny and small with a huge yellow umbrella shielding her even though she wore a matching and gaudy rain slicker and boots. Struggling to lean over and roll down the window just enough, so far she had done everything to ignore me.

"Need a lift?" I asked in an uncharacteristic bit of forwardness.

She looked like she was about to spout off something until she had a good look at me from underneath that umbrella of hers, whatever she was about to say catching in her throat. Looking once up the lonely road and down the way she had come, the girl looked to the empty seat beside me with undisguised longing and want. Hailing from Phoenix I couldn't blame her, the ever present rain a damper on all things bright and sunny like the colours she wore.

"Where ya headed?" She asked.

"Forks High School." I replied.

"Well alright then." She answered, shaking off her umbrella and throwing it in the back of _the thing_.

Taking real note of her for the first time as she climbed in and stripped her slicker to throw it at her feet clad in yellow rain boots, she turned out to be Asian at a glance painting her with a broad brush. I felt there was a story there instantly, Forks not the most multicultural place in the world, but let it be more surprised that she was headed the same way I was.

"Thanks for the lift." She said, warming her hands on the vents.

"You're welcome." I answered.

All my worries from the day before had just the slightest bit of edge taken off, I'd still be the new girl but something about my hitchhiker had me thinking she was no local either. For one thing no one wore that much yellow if they weren't crying for attention or trying to remember the sunny skies that were so foreign to Forks.

"Where you from?" I asked, surprisingly talkative for a change.

"LA, Cali." She answered.

"Phoenix." I tossed back, a partial truth for the most part even if I had some roots here.

"Well fuck if we ain't neighbours!" She laughed, rubbing her hands together for warmth and throwing me a smile.

Something about that smile tugged at my lips in sympathy, something else to take the edge off going to my first day of High School all over again. This time I couldn't loose myself in the anonymity of just being another girl in class, they had all grown up together since they were toddlers just like their parents and grandparents before them.

"I'm Bella." I offered, something about how easily she accepted me thinking I owed her as much.

"Hey Beautiful." She replied with little else.

It almost felt a cruel joke that my name meant just that, my mother a hopeless romantic. Pale, awkward and not even having the blonde hair or blue eyes that the Valley of the Sun conjured, I turned my eyes back to the road and the slapping of the wipers in the relentless mist that hung.

"You're not alone, my parents were dicks too. Jubilation. Jubilation Lee, I just go by Jubilee, it's just that little bit better." Jubilee said filling the quiet that had fallen between us.

All the yellow made sense now, right along with the smile she managed in the lull of conversation. She was just someone else out of her depth trying to cling to what she knew, worse yet she stood out worse than even me. It made me feel sorry for her even as I felt sorry for myself, at least I somehow fit the status quo of this rural town. I could only imagine how hard it was for her, wondering just what had brought her up north past Seattle.

Turning the radio back on, it played stuff that had been old and tired a year before but she seemed to enjoy it. Winding down the roads and thinking on the way home I'd have to hit up the first gas station for one of those stupid pine tree air fresheners if to just banish the smell of tobacco from the truck, I eventually found the school right along with all the kids that would have made up my junior class back home.

"Hey thanks again for the lift ." Jubilee said, pulling her slicker back on against the drizzle and finding her umbrella out of the back.

Feeling like I hadn't done her a favour bringing her here, I just nodded and let her off to go find a parking spot. Already I could feel them eyeing me as I drove past, made all the worst by the fact that I must have brought another pariah to school if the looks they threw her that I caught in my rear view were any indication. Suddenly I wished I had just had her tag along with me so I could ask a few directions, instead I just parked right out front because it was empty.

"Fuck it's cold." I muttered under my breath stepping out, easy to forget just why my one time passenger had been warming her hands on the vent until I was subject to the same weather.

Reading a sign that said Front Office, it beat walking around in the rain trying to find the door the rest of my future classmates normally used. Taking a deep breath and opening the door, it was lightly lit and warm which was more welcoming than the dreary drizzle I stood in so I stepped on inside for better or worse accepting my fate at Forks Highschool.

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Author's Note : While I'm new to the Twilight Saga, popular culture couldn't have me resist the mash up of a different kind of 'Sparkly vampire' even if the story that brought us Vampire Jubilee is riding this series coattails. To be updated as I read through the novels, trying to mix into the Twilight Saga the characters of the Marvel universe in character and spirit only, without everything else. Thanks for reading, toodles!


	2. Chapter 2

Stephenie Meyer is the lady behind Twilight, while Marvel owns the X-men characters mentioned here within. No profit is to be made by this work.

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My first day of High School all over again had earned me the enmity of a boy who otherwise could have been an angel I would have welcomed into my dreams, instead only to become a devil I dreaded meeting as I made my way from one class to another with faces that were easy to remember yet forgetting their names almost as soon as they were mentioned. I had cried on my drive home yesterday, now I just sat alone behind the windshield and took comfort from the small space that was entirely mine. Peering over the glossy black of the steering wheel I could see the other Cullens and the Hale twins heading off to the one shiny, new car in the parking lot I had noticed the day before, the Volvo.

Most of the rest of the school did their best to ignore them though there were more than enough petty looks poorly disguised by the girls, the jealousy of Jessica instantly remembered thinking again how insulted she sounded that none these beatific boys showed no interest in them. A class spent next to Edward feeling his revulsion to me that cumulated in his request to switch schedules had me knowing that hurt, an angry part of myself wishing I had the words and chance to set him straight how exactly I couldn't care less if I tried.

Noticing a flash of yellow in all the earth tones and deary colours that Forks was home to, I saw my hitchhiker from the day past waving to the Volvo in passing to see the impossible, a Cullen waving back with sad green eyes and skin paler than my own. Trying to remember it all from the day before, horrible as I was with names, her name came back to me finally as Laura, Laura Cullen. If anyone noticed they didn't show it, but my own interest was piqued enough to wait while other cars pulled out and headed onto the rural highway to see just what Jubilee was up to today.

It would all come down to a coin toss, having a date with the Thriftway just so I wouldn't have to endure another night of what Charlie called cooking. Mom wasn't much better, it was actually scary when she got to experimenting, so I had to pick up a skillet and a spatula at a young age just to find out eggs shouldn't be brown and meatloaf wasn't meant to be crunchy through and through. Tapping my fingers on the wheel waiting and watching, the yellow clad girl childishly jumping into a puddle in her yellow wellingtons with impunity and utter abandon. Watching her turn towards town I saw my luck had held through twice over now, not once seeing Edward today and now being able to ask another outcast about the whole thing if only she needed another ride.

Wondering if I'd ever get used to just how loud my _thing _was, I pulled out with the rest of the cars in the queue doing my best to pretend it wasn't mine that had everyone talking the louder or clutching their ears until I was out on the road. Pulling to the shoulder and waiting until she caught up in her own time, even though I had directions from Charlie I feigned ignorant and leaned over rolling down the window.

"Where're you headed?" I asked.

It was raining again which was hardly surprising, her umbrella shielding her right along with that rain slicker of hers and her boots. Something I hadn't noticed the day before was that she had no backpack or book bag, wondering just where she kept all her school work. She looked up and down the road before pointing on towards town as if it said it all. At the least she was going my way once again.

"You know the way to the Thriftway?" I asked only to earn a nod.

"Trade you a lift for directions." I offered.

This at least got me a smile as she shook off her large umbrella and threw it right into the back of the truck like the day before. Stripping off her jacket and climbing on in, she was rolling up the window as I pulled back onto the road when a break in traffic came. The only noise other than the vents was the slapping of the wiper blades, I hadn't bothered with the radio yet and this time she seemed comfortable in the quiet.

"I didn't see you at lunch." I remarked trying to draw her in.

Busy as I was counting the Cullens and entertaining conversation with the rest of the kids, I hadn't noticed her. A couple of looks was all I could spare busy as I was, but her shrug now told me I was right.

"I just eat alone." Jubilee said, drawing doodles in the fogged window.

"Why?"

By her knotted brow and pursed lips filled with frustration it looked like she was counting to ten because that was what someone had once told her to do, blowing a breath and turning on the radio to fill the quiet she didn't long to.

"Thriftway is just up ahead on the right, along with everything else these banjo bumpkins need." Jubilee mumbled, her doodles rubbed out so she could look out the window.

Her sullen tone and listless shoulders had me feeling her dour mood was all my fault, a few innocent questions opening a can of worms that had cast clouds over her sunny wear. Gone was the girl innocently splashing in puddles without a care how childish it looked, here there was someone with a bone to pick and probably the right kind of words I wanted to use against a certain boy. Parking off alone near the back of the lot and leaving the truck idling, I considered my next words carefully.

"You never told me where you were headed." I noted, my fingers resting on my keys.

"Here, gonna get some Skittles and stuff." Jubilee said, already pulling on her rain slicker.

"I'm just getting a few things myself, you...want a ride back?" I asked slowly, still not even having the chance to ask her about that wave.

She looked to consider the weather and the clouds rolling in, the patter of rain heavy against the cab of the truck as we sat there with the 'Latest and Greatest' playing as far as Forks was concerned.

"Sure, thanks. Just as long as it ain't outta your way." Jubilee said, throwing open the door and rushing out of the truck.

Looking at the rain coming down in sheets I suddenly wished I had her foresight for the weather, not even an umbrella handy for the long walk to the grocery store. Willing myself for the mad dash, it was then I noticed the splash of yellow outside my door and looked to see my hitchhiker standing there with her hood pulled up and her bright yellow umbrella offered. Thinking us even, I jumped out and took it quickly and walked along with her to the store putting something else on the shopping list that I was in sore need of.

Grabbing a cart for the sole reason it put something between me and the rest of the world, Jubilee was like a child rushing off to the candy isle to disappear as I hit up the deli counter for a steak. Pickings were slim, the sort of stuff that was just getting shipped in from the nearest packing plant, promising myself to find a proper butcher in town once I had the time. Finding a cut that would feed Charlie and me, I leaned against the cart and wandered around staring at all the sorts of folk trying to figure out what was on for dinner.

Feeling a poke at my back I turned to see her there with a purloined basket full of two packs of Skittles, a bag of M&Ms and one thing we seemed to share in common, a box of Mike & Ike.

"Can I ask you a question?"

That was enough to put her on guard but she still gave me a nod, ducking behind me with her basket of candy ignoring all the looks from the rest of the shoppers. Already I had met a few people that seemed to know me, always calling me Isabella Swan, a couple I just didn't have the heart to correct. Small town gossip put the tabloids to shame.

"What do you think of the Cullens?"

This had her gnawing on her lip and staring at her feet as she walked behind me, leaving me wondering just how awkward the drive home would be or if she'd even take me up on the offered lift back. Stopping beside a freezer chest full of generic Angus brand beef patties, I pretended to look over them and their nutritional value giving her time to mull over my question.

"Well, they got home schooled written all over them. Like, stamped on their foreheads. They're super smart, top of the class smart, and they always eat together at lunch." Jubilee offered.

"I thought you ate alone."

This earned me her ire, thinking she might just stalk off and leave me all alone not that it was so horrible. I just couldn't help catch her in a lie.

"I got sick of the jokes, and the sudo-parents got sick of me in detention. So I just eat my lunch in class, alone. Gives me time to catch up on homework, 'cept for math as that's totally balls." Jubilee grumbled, hopping onto the front of the cart and leaning like any of the other children riding them.

I wanted to say I was sorry but something about the set of her shoulders told me it would fall on deaf, prideful ears. So I just pushed her along looking for everything else to make a proper dinner tonight. Once we got to the cash she jumped off, piling her sugary purchases next to mine with a black plastic stick between them. The rain was little more than a drizzle as we walked back to _the Thing_, throwing the wipers on as needed but otherwise sitting in silence other than the radio.

"I can pick you up tomorrow if you need." I offered.

"You don't mind?" Jubilee asked, looking surprised and full of honest astonishment.

"You're going my way, it's no problem."

This got me a smile, a real smile from her without any guarded emotions or bravado, payment enough for a trivial task. Looking at her in the rear view as I head back to Charlie's, there was that skip in her step again as she jumped in puddles just like she had after waving to Laura Cullen in the parking lot. I still didn't know if she was right, but there was something odd about the Cullens and Hales other than coming from Alaska and being adopted. Maybe Charlie would know, a proper meat and potato dinner probably enough to get a few words out of him .

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